01-20-2006, 09:31 AM
My warrior has been protection spec for most of her career (started the day the game came out). Tanking is the most enjoyable aspect of this game for me by far.
I recently made a druid on a seperate account (originally intended as a dual box healbot), and as I looked at all the 1.8 improvements to the druid tree I was astounded by how strong a case on paper they've made for a great tank spec.
At this point my druid has MT'd all the pre-MC content and offtanked a full MC clear excepting Golemagg's dogs. Non-fear bosses are next on the checklist. Now that I'm getting more comfortable doing these runs with the druid I have toyed with collecting some comparative data.
Multiple druid players have MTd all of BWL besides Nefarian (who forces druids to go cat - kinda puts a monkey wrench into it). Recent thread posted by one such BWL MT druid.
Therefore, the "viable" question is really not even a relevant discussion. Clearly druid tanking is viable. As to the question of optimal - hard to say, but one thing I can say is that after ~10 months of playing a protection warrior who was not so useful in PvP, I love having a toon capable of tanking up to my personal standards (i.e. not an MS warrior - tried it for a couple months, hated the "feel" of tanking with that spec) that I can also PvP with effectively without respeccing.
Just from rough experience, I would say your typically geared MT druid will have marginally higher threat generation than a typically geared MT warrior, but will have marginally less net mitigation after crits, parries, the 10% reduction of elemental damage and such. Upside is with an ~8k+ life buffer, the lesser mitigation does not translate into a dead tank - rather simply a little extra hustle from healers required on crits. Both classes can re-tweak gear to get more threat/mitigation, but the tradeoff in both cases is usually not worth the bother.
What has shocked me, when looking into the druid tank subject in general is the amount of prejudice and near hatred some people have experienced over the concept (no such issues at the Basin on Tichondrius). In my opinion a robust guild would have at least one competent protection warrior and at least one competent feral specced druid on every raid.
I feel druids should be the default choices for the following endgame encounters:
* ZG Spider Boss - Two tanks on this are nice, but a quick feral druid can solo tank it due to the ability to remove roots (coming from horde perspective with no blessing of freedom) followed by a 10 second cooldown intercept that's in the same "stance" as taunt.
* ZG Jin'Do - Immunity to Frog means Jin'Do never chases after some poor clothie who happens to be 2nd on the hate list.
* MC Lucifron Adds - Immunity to Mind Control guarantees no adds running loose.
* MC Majordomo - 10 second cooldown intercept in same "stance" as taunt again. No 2nd tank needed and possibly not even hunters (have yet to try this first hand).
* MC Ragnaros (assuming sufficient FR) - a fast feral charge and taunt completely negates the threat of the MT knockback (again not first hand - the videos of the bears 20 feet in the air zipping back and taking back aggro within seconds are fun though).
* Silithus Royal (Falling Damage One) - Again the feral charge to negate all falling damage and get back to the boss quickly to tank.
* AQ boss that sheeps the MT (unconfirmed) - immunity to polymorph FTW.
I recently made a druid on a seperate account (originally intended as a dual box healbot), and as I looked at all the 1.8 improvements to the druid tree I was astounded by how strong a case on paper they've made for a great tank spec.
At this point my druid has MT'd all the pre-MC content and offtanked a full MC clear excepting Golemagg's dogs. Non-fear bosses are next on the checklist. Now that I'm getting more comfortable doing these runs with the druid I have toyed with collecting some comparative data.
Multiple druid players have MTd all of BWL besides Nefarian (who forces druids to go cat - kinda puts a monkey wrench into it). Recent thread posted by one such BWL MT druid.
Therefore, the "viable" question is really not even a relevant discussion. Clearly druid tanking is viable. As to the question of optimal - hard to say, but one thing I can say is that after ~10 months of playing a protection warrior who was not so useful in PvP, I love having a toon capable of tanking up to my personal standards (i.e. not an MS warrior - tried it for a couple months, hated the "feel" of tanking with that spec) that I can also PvP with effectively without respeccing.
Just from rough experience, I would say your typically geared MT druid will have marginally higher threat generation than a typically geared MT warrior, but will have marginally less net mitigation after crits, parries, the 10% reduction of elemental damage and such. Upside is with an ~8k+ life buffer, the lesser mitigation does not translate into a dead tank - rather simply a little extra hustle from healers required on crits. Both classes can re-tweak gear to get more threat/mitigation, but the tradeoff in both cases is usually not worth the bother.
What has shocked me, when looking into the druid tank subject in general is the amount of prejudice and near hatred some people have experienced over the concept (no such issues at the Basin on Tichondrius). In my opinion a robust guild would have at least one competent protection warrior and at least one competent feral specced druid on every raid.
I feel druids should be the default choices for the following endgame encounters:
* ZG Spider Boss - Two tanks on this are nice, but a quick feral druid can solo tank it due to the ability to remove roots (coming from horde perspective with no blessing of freedom) followed by a 10 second cooldown intercept that's in the same "stance" as taunt.
* ZG Jin'Do - Immunity to Frog means Jin'Do never chases after some poor clothie who happens to be 2nd on the hate list.
* MC Lucifron Adds - Immunity to Mind Control guarantees no adds running loose.
* MC Majordomo - 10 second cooldown intercept in same "stance" as taunt again. No 2nd tank needed and possibly not even hunters (have yet to try this first hand).
* MC Ragnaros (assuming sufficient FR) - a fast feral charge and taunt completely negates the threat of the MT knockback (again not first hand - the videos of the bears 20 feet in the air zipping back and taking back aggro within seconds are fun though).
* Silithus Royal (Falling Damage One) - Again the feral charge to negate all falling damage and get back to the boss quickly to tank.
* AQ boss that sheeps the MT (unconfirmed) - immunity to polymorph FTW.